The present invention relates to a machining fluid suitable for a wide variety of machining operations including electrochemical shaping, cavity-sinking, milling, drilling, cutting, honing, grinding and polishing operations utilizing electrochemical erosion action possibly in combination with other material-removal action (which are generally referred to herein as electrochemical machining), electrical-discharge shaping, cavity-sinking, milling, drilling, cutting, grinding and polishing operations utilizing electrical-discharge erosion action possibly in combination with other material removal action (which are generally referred to herein as electrical discharge machining) and conventional shaping, cavity-sinking, milling, drilling, cutting, honing, grinding, polishing and other purely mechanical machining operations. The latter is intended to include also turning, broaching, reaming, threading, rolling, gearing, sawing, forming, deburring, forging, burnishing, etc.
In all machining operations as described, significant problems arise vis-a-vis the machining fluid.
Thus, in electrochemical machining, the machining fluid serving as the electrochemical reaction media across the machining gap is an aqueous solution of an electrolyte which has made anti-corrosion measures unavoidable.
In electrical discharge machining, kerosene and the like oil products have long been utilized as the spark discharge media because of their high dielectric constant and since they pose practically no corrosion problem. In the travelling-wire electrical-discharge machining process, however, in which a wire or a like elongated electrode is continuously passed through the machining zone formed between the same and a workpiece and relatively displaced transversely thereto, distilled water is now commonly employed which is flushed through the machining zone positioned in the atmosphere. In such processes, the use of the flammable oil exposed to the air is impossible or impractical. Even in other modes of electrical discharge machining, the use of water is preferred, apart from its ready availability, since thanks to its lower viscosity water allows a higher flushing flow into which is required to insure prompt removal of machining chips and other discharge products, rapid cooling and instantaneous arc extinction through an extremely narrow machining gap. Here again, however a corrosion problem arises with water which causes the machining equipment, unless protective measures an applied, as well as workpiece surfaces to rust.
Machining fluids for mechanical machining have compositions to which enable them reduce friction between a tool and a workpiece during the machining process, to prevent or alleviate tool wear, and to protect tool and/or workpiece surfaces from becoming welded by machining chips while limiting the generation of heat and facilitating the thermal emission from the machining region thereby insuring desired fine finished surfaces and an extended tool like. There are, here too, corrosion and rust problems when the machining media is diluted with water.
Thus, various additives have been proposed in the respective machining techniques described, but these additives are more or less unsatisfactory and expensive, harmful, noxious and/or have the effect of reducing the machining efficiency.